Pauline C. Harris's Blog, page 5

PERFECT Copies!

I got my PERFECT copies today.  So, I thought I’d share some pictures, because I’m very excited.  I mean, BOOK TWO of a series I ACTUALLY WROTE and is ACTUALLY PUBLISHED, is finally here. Happiness.

Lots and lots of them!

I just had to show the back – it has the Mechanical cover. Kinda excited about this.

Annnnddd, in light of the situation, I made some PERFECT bookmarks.

So, basically this has been my week.  Anyway, have a great day!

 

~ Pauline

 

 

 

Supporting Characters (and why you can’t neglect them)

Supporting characters, many times, are just as crucial to your novel as your main character.  They are the ones who stand by your main character’s side, befriend them, torture them, or love them.  Ultimately, they shape who your main character is. They are super important.

 

Many times when I’m reading a novel, if the supporting characters are done well, one of them might be my favorite character in the story.  They’re there to provide, support, conflict and interest.

 

Sadly, many authors (me included) fall into the rut of creating flat and boring supporting characters.  But if your main character is the only one who is interesting and real, the story isn’t going to live up to it’s full potential.  Remember, every one of your characters is a person with wants and fears and secrets – so make sure you make that known.

 

Here are some tips on developing supporting characters:

 

Write a one page (or a few paragraphs) rant for each of your supporting characters.  What do they think about the circumstances happening in your story?  Are they scared, excited, annoyed?  How do they feel about the other characters?  Any love triangles going on, conflicted relationships, etc.
Write a one page (or a few paragraphs) rant for your villain – why they are doing what they’re doing and why they’re right.  Remember, the villain doesn’t consider themselves a villain at all; to them, they are the hero.
Write your supporting characters as if they think the story is about them.  They are people too – they’re not just there to “support” your character, even if that’s what you intended them to do.
Ask yourself why and how this character comes into your story.  You might think your supporting character comes into the story to be a best friend to your main character, but that’s not what your supporting character thinks.  What reasons do they have for being part of this story?  Were they forced into the situation, do they feel they need to stick by your main character’s side because they are a family member or loved one?
Spend just as much time thinking up your supporting characters and you think up your main characters.  Think up back stories, wants, fears and secrets.

 

So those are just a few suggestions that helped me with my supporting characters.  I also have more character development questions in a previous post here: http://paulinecharris.wordpress.com/2013/08/11/questions-to-ask-when-creating-a-character/

Hope this helps and good luck!

 

~ Pauline

Questions to Ask When Creating a Character

Characters are obviously the most important part of your story – you can have a ridiculous plot, but if the characters are lovable and interesting, people will keep reading.  So, with that in mind, creating real and interesting characters is super important to your story.  Here is a list of questions that has always helped me with creating characters and will hopefully help you as well.

First of all: what does your character want?  Your character needs motivation, so they need to want something.  Remember, it’s the same with your villain.  In most cases, the villain doesn’t especially want to torture you’re main character.  What usually happens, is the villain wants to accomplish something, so does something about it, and a trail of events leads them to eventually torture your main character (all for the purpose of that original want).
What is one secret your character has?  Remember, everyone has secrets, whether it’s something silly and embarrassing, like spilling a drink yourself, or something more sinister…
What is one (or a few) of your character’s fears?  Again, everyone has fears.  What is your character afraid of during your story?  What could they lose, or have happen?
Why is your character as involved in the story as they are?  Were they dragged into it, do they feel strongly about the cause, do they think they can make a difference?  Why are they saving the world, or fighting for freedom, or walking right into the face of danger?
What does your character believe in?  Do they believe in any religion, do they believe in nothing, or are they unsure?  Emotional ties, whether to a belief, or a person, or to an idea, are what rule most people.  We do things mostly because of emotions and feelings.  Example: Character loves someone and therefore puts themselves in great peril just to save the person they love, even though all common sense tells them it’s impossible and they will most likely die.  They aren’t listening to logic, they’re listening to feelings.
Who does your character love?  Any parents, family, love interests, friends?
List five little traits about your character.  People are made up of little things just as much as they are made up of big things.  Maybe your character loves raspberries or sings opera in the shower.
List one, or a few, little quirks your character has.  Everyone has weird little things they do.  Is your character somewhat OCD about certain things?  Maybe they have an obsession with the color green, or can’t stand to have their hair in their face, so they always wear it back.
What are three flaws your character has?  Are they easily distracted, do they hate to follow rules?
What are three strengths your character has?  Maybe your character is very brave, or maybe a skilled swimmer.
What makes your character happy?
What makes your character sad or upset?
Does your character have any hobbies?
Name a life event of your character’s and how it shaped who they are.  Example: Character was in a bad car accident as a young child.  Result – character is 16 and is now afraid to get their license and drive.
How will your character develop throughout the course of the story?  In most YA novels, the character starts out more innocent and by the end they’ve matured (or forced to mature by the circumstance of their story).  Explain how they will change.  Will they harden and become stronger?  More caring?  More understanding?
What is the one thing that your character thinks about the most?  It could be a person, a thing, something they need to do, etc.

 

 

By the way, this should be done for villains as well as main characters.  For a story to be believable (and super good!) your villain needs to be just as developed, if not more so, than your main character.

 

Hope this helps and good luck!

 

~ Pauline

Super Easy Book Trailers!

Okay, so from the very beginning of my publishing journey, I’d always wanted a book trailer for my book.  I mean, how cool is the idea of a book trailer??  I was in love with the idea from the very first time I ever saw one.  So when Mechanical came out, I excitedly started to work on it…

 

Until I realized how hard it is.  Almost all songs and photos are copyrighted and unless you have some serious filming and editing skills (not to mention a good video editor program), you’re book trailer may not turn out so well…

 

So I had basically resigned from the idea of ever having a book trailer for Mechanical, until I found Animoto.com.  I’m sure there are other sites out there that could do the exact same thing, but I’m completely in love with Animoto.com.  Basically, you sign up for a free account and you can make as many videos as you want.  Although, if you only have the free account, you can only make thirty second videos (which is actually the perfect length for a book trailer, so it’s all good .  They have tons of templates and all you do is upload some photos (like your book cover) and some text, pick a song from their list (or upload your own – just make sure it isn’t copyrighted) and Animoto creates the rest.  And it’s super fast.  I made my first trailer in under an hour.  And they look amazing!

Here’s the book trailer I made for my book, Mechanical:

 

You can check out the other book trailers I’ve made in the “Videos” tab up top.

 

Just thought I’d share.  Book trailers are SO fun to have for your books and I wish someone had pointed me to Animoto earlier.

 

By the way, Freedigitalphotos.com is the site I went to for any photos I used in my book trailers.  You can use the photos for free as long as you credit the site and the creator of the photo/image in your video description.

 

Hope this helped and have fun making your book trailers!

 

~ Pauline

“Perfect” Released!

PERFECT, book 2 of the Mechanical Trilogy, is finally out!!  :D  Yay!  Below, is a quick blurb, the book trailer, and the cover.

 

Drew now knows the real mission her creators were trying to accomplish; create a perfect world. In other words, taking people, eventually all of the people on earth, and turning them into mechanically altered, perfect, human beings. That is what Drew previously found out happened to her.

But, although Drew, Jessica and Michael know that they need to somehow stop the creators, Drew also knows that she’s made another enemy along the way; one possibly even more dangerous than the creators.

As Drew struggles to detach herself from the people who “created” her and untangle the mess they’ve made, she discovers that it might not be as easy as she thought, that she is destined to play a larger role in this plan than she ever intended.

 

 

Book Two of the Mechanical Trilogy

 

Available from Fire and Ice, and imprint of Melange Books LLC:  http://www.fireandiceya.com/authors/paulineharris/perfect.html

 

 

~ Pauline

Why Not to Give Up on Writing

Okay, so is going to sound ridiculously clichéd.  I mean, just about every author out there who is asked for advice for aspiring writers, basically tells them, “don’t give up”.  But it’s true and surprisingly, this might just be one of the hardest parts about writing.

 

The rejection.

 

I mean, you finish your novel, you love it to pieces, you’re proud of it, you’re confident and you send it off to a billion publishers and literary agents…and you get a billion rejection letters back.  It sucks.  After about a year of querying for my book “Mechanical” I was about ready to give up.  I was at my all time low, thinking I’d never get published and I might as well completely forget it.  But just about a month later, I got three offers to sign “Mechanical”.  So I’m glad I hadn’t decided to give up.

 

Persistence is key.

 

Just keep querying.  There are soooo so many publishers and literary agents out there.  There are obviously the big six publishers, but there also smaller presses that accept queries directly from authors – there’s always more people you can query.  And don’t be afraid to query someone again with a different book, or a modified query letter.

 

Learn from your mistakes.

 

It can take awhile to get used to the whole publishing industry and how it works.  I most definitely don’t have a complete handle on everything.  But when I started querying, I was about 12 years old and my query letters were bad.  Really bad.  But I learned pretty soon what worked and what didn’t.  I did some research and figured out what agents liked my genre of writing, how to write good query letters, and query letter etiquette.  Once you know a little bit more about what you’re doing, it will get easier and your chances of getting published will go up.

 

Why did you start?

 

Whenever you feel like giving up, ask yourself why you started.  For instant fame?  I doubt it.  You started because you love writing and ultimately, no matter what happens, you’ll always love to write, so do it anyway.  I know that if even if I never got published, I would always keep writing.  And persistence is one thing most successful people have in common, so keep going!

 

If you’re a teen writer, you’re young!

 

This is for all the teen writers out there, because I’m one and I’ve been one for four years and I know how it is.  You want to be published so badly and you want to be published now.  I get it.  Really.  But you have to remember, you’re young.  After my first book I ever wrote (which I ended up self publishing) got rejected by just about every literary agent and publisher out there, my parents took me aside and congratulated me for trying, but basically reminded me that I was young and had years to learn and grow and hone my writing.

 

So don’t give up, no matter what!  And good luck with your books!

 

~ Pauline

Mechanical Book Trailer! Yay!

So ridiculously excited…

The Importance of Drafting

Okay, I’m sure you’ve heard the expression that first drafts are always…well, you know.  Not all that great?  Well, for the longest time, I didn’t believe that at all.  I was always the one who’d write my story and the minute I’d typed the last sentence, I viewed it as done.  Completely done.  Ready to be read by family, friends and the literary agents I queried.  It wasn’t until recently that I really understood how important editing is.

Give yourself a break.

 

I know that the minute you’re done with your manuscript you probably want to read it right away and fix everything in a matter of hours, but hold off.  This is definitely the hardest thing for me to do, because I’m ridiculously impatient (impatience and authoring…who would’ve thought those were even compatible?) but wait at least a week, preferably two or three to distance yourself from your book.  You’ll come back ready to read your novel like a reader, not an author, and you’ll be better at finding the mistakes.

You can’t really do this on your own…  

 

Okay, what I mean is that you’re the author and most of the time you’re way too close to your novel to see many of the obvious flaws.  The most important thing I’ve learned about editing is that you need someone else (or preferably, multiple people) to read your book and give you honest feedback.  About your writing, about the plot, characters, holes, problems – anything and everything.  I cannot tell you how ridiculously wonderful it is to have an editor who sees the things that I don’t.

Editing can be overwhelming, so do it in waves.

 

This is why they are called drafts.  Plural.  Draft one is getting the idea out on paper, however horrible or random it is.  Draft two is probably for obvious or easy-to-fix mistakes and grammatical errors.  Depending on what needs fixing in your story, you can go through a draft focusing just on character development or flaws, or go through solely for the purpose of fixing a major plot point, etc.

Do not accept your first draft as a complete and finished product.

 

Okay, I’m going to say this again.  Your first draft isn’t going to be the best your novel can be.  Some first drafts can be amazing, I’ll admit (unfortunately, not mine), but your novel will always be better if you do multiple drafts and edits and if you’re serious about publishing, this is super important.  I used to settle for “kinda good” immediately after I finished a novel and called it done.  But now that I’ve started drafting and editing, they’re better than I ever thought possible.

So edit!  Because if you’re anything like me, you need to be told a billion times before you even try.

So good luck with drafting and editing, and have fun!

Pauline

Bookmark Tutorial

Alright, this is basically just a post about how I made my bookmarks specifically designed for my books.  I didn’t really feel like paying someone a bunch of money to design me a bookmark so I designed my own.  But when I went to Staples and Walmart, neither one of them said they could print out bookmarks (I don’t understand why!), so I gave it a go myself.

So, here’s my tutorial.  With pictures.

 

Things I used to make my bookmarks:

 

Microsoft Publisher

Microsoft Power Point

A printer

Cardstock paper

Paint (for random photo manipulation)

Windows Live Photo Gallery (for some super easy photo editing)

 

Design your own bookmark.

 

I LOVED the idea of designing my own bookmark, and surprisingly it wasn’t too hard to make a nice-looking one.  I don’t have any fancy design or photo editing programs, so I just used Microsoft Publisher.

All I used for my bookmark was the cover of my book.  I used Windows Live Photo Gallery to crop a part of it to use as the backdrop, changed the colors a little bit and then pasted the whole cover photo on top of it using Publisher.  Then, I wrote some stuff relating to the story and put my name on it.  Also, I made a back for the bookmark and just put my website on it.

Once I was done with the bookmark, I highlighted everything in Publisher, right clicked, pasted it into paint and saved it as a photo to print later.

Below, are the two bookmark types I made (front and back).

 

Format for printing.

 

I used Microsoft Power Point for formatting and printing.

 

I’m not very good at the whole spatial positioning thing and envisioning how something will turn out when you print it, so I failed quite a few times on this step.  Basically, if you want double sided bookmarks (which are so much cooler ) you’ll need to remember to center the bookmark file in the middle of the page, so that when you turn it over and print on the other side of the page, they will line up when you cut the bookmark out.

 

But I thought that wasting a whole piece of paper on one bookmark was kind of a waste, so I pasted about four next to each other, positioning the whole clump in the center of the page.

I used Microsoft Power Point to format and print the bookmarks, and in this photo you can (hopefully) see the dots across the page that will help you align the bookmarks to make them center.

In this photo, you can see how the back of the bookmarks are lined up the same was the front ones are.

 

So you print the front side out, flip the paper over, and print on the back side of it.  Depending on what kind of printer you have, this might take a few tries to get it right, but it shouldn’t be too difficult.

 

Then, you can cut them out and give them to people or whatever.

 

Feel awesome. 

 

You just made some ridiculously cool bookmarks.  So smile.

Perfect Cover Reveal and Release Date!

Yayyyyyy!!  The cover for Perfect, book 2 of the Mechanical Trilogy, is dooooone. It was designed by Caroline Andrus from Melange Books LLC and I’m super stoked about it.

Aaaand, it’s scheduled to be released June 29th 2013.  So, super soon.

Here’s a blurb:

Drew now knows the real mission her creators were trying to accomplish; create a perfect world.  In other words, taking people, eventually all of the people on earth, and turning them into mechanically altered, perfect, human beings.  That is what Drew previously found out happened to her.

But, although Drew, Jessica and Michael know that they need to somehow stop the creators, Drew also knows that she’s made another enemy along the way; one possibly even more dangerous than the creators.

As Drew struggles to detatch herself from the people who “created” her and untangle the mess they’ve made, she discovers  that it might not be as easy as she thought, that she is destined to play a larger role in this plan than she ever intended.